The lights came up on a scene depicting an African savannah at dawn. Thirty-one horses lay âœsleepingâ with their riders cuddled close by.
The sense of relaxed trust between animal and trainer was plapable â unconditional. The showâs final moments were equally remarkable, with white horses running full tilt and unfettered through a shallow âœlakeâ. The water sprayed, manes were tossed and this critic sat, transfixed.
Kathryn Greenaway
Larry David outdoes himself with Palestinian chicken
Larry David delights in making audiences cringe on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He has no filter. He is curmudgeonly and incorrigible. He has created situations in which his character dates a woman in a wheelchair to avoid lineups at restaurants, or picks up a prostitute to enable him to use the carpool lane on the freeway.

See the full article from “Montreal Gazette”

ANGEL: A little love for Parc Ave Still suffering from the major surgery that started what feels like forever ago (actually the latest round started in the summer of 2010), Parc Avenue is getting a bit of help from the city administration. Montreal will pump $250,000 into promoting the avenue as a shopping destination, intended to help out the merchants who have seen their customers decline, dramatically in some cases, since the project to replace water mains began. It’s a good idea, in theory, though it’s still unclear how far the quarter-mil will go—and whether this is a case of too little, too late for many small-business owners.
INSECT: Canada’s puny lobbying laws Remember Rahim Jaffer? The young, ethnic, erstwhile Conservative MP golden boy from Edmonton? The one who was disgraced last year amid allegations of drunk driving, cocaine use and partying with prostitutes? Well, he got his wrist slapped over efforts that suspiciously looked like lobbying without his being a registered lobbyist. He did get chas­tised this week, …

See the full article from “Montreal Mirror”

Shafia, 58, is charged, along with his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their son, Hamed, 20, with four counts of first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty to killing sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was Shafia’s first wife. He married her in Afghanistan.
The four were found dead June 30, 2009, in a Nissan Sentra discovered submerged in a shallow canal in Kingston. The victims had drowned. Three of them had bruises on their heads that remain unexplained.
Prosecutors allege Shafia was angry that his daughters defied him, took boyfriends and dressed in revealing clothes. Mohammad had asked for a divorce, the trial heard, though Shafia denied the claim. Shafia acknowledged, during questioning by Lacelle, that he had called his daughters Zainab and Sahar “whores” and “prostitutes” after he saw photos of them posing in bikinis or underwear or hugging boyfriends. He said he did not see the photos until after their deaths.

See the full article from “The Province”

Shafia, 58, is charged, along with his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their son, Hamed, 20, with four counts of first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty to killing sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was Shafia’s first wife. He married her in Afghanistan.
The four were found dead June 30, 2009, in a Nissan Sentra discovered submerged in a shallow canal in Kingston. The victims had drowned. Three of them had bruises on their heads that remain unexplained.
Prosecutors allege Shafia was angry that his daughters defied him, took boyfriends and dressed in revealing clothes. Mohammad had asked for a divorce, the trial heard, though Shafia denied the claim. Shafia acknowledged, during questioning by Lacelle, that he had called his daughters Zainab and Sahar “whores” and “prostitutes” after he saw photos of them posing in bikinis or underwear or hugging boyfriends. He said he did not see the photos until after their deaths.

See the full article from “Montreal Gazette”

Shafia, 58, is charged, along with his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their son Hamed, 20, with four counts of first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty to killing Shafia sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was Shafiaâs first wife. He married her in Afghanistan.
The four were found dead June 30, 2009, in a Nissan Sentra discovered submerged in a shallow canal in Kingston. The victims had drowned. Three of them had bruises on their heads that remain unexplained.
Prosecutors allege that Shafia was angry that his daughters defied him, took boyfriends and dressed in revealing clothes. Mohammad had asked for a divorce, the trial heard, though Shafia denied the claim. Shafia acknowledged, during questioning by Lacelle, that he had called his daughters Zainab and Sahar âœwhoresâ and âœprostitutesâ after he saw photos of them posing in bikinis or underwear or hugging boyfriends. He said he did not see the photos until after their deaths.

See the full article from “Montreal Gazette”

The dark cloud on the horizon is the acceleration of Pierre’s beloved working-class quartier into turf for gangbangers, junkies, and whores. A filmmaker who first drew attention with his doc Roger Toupin, épicier variété (2003), an immersion into the world of a convenience story owner, Pilon loves zeroing in on daily ‘hood life. In Décharge, we get everything from social life in laundromats to the details of a garbage disposal operation to the techniques of low-level prostitution.
The movie’s storyline, flawed by overlinear development, on-the-nose tendencies, and a surplus of exposition, revolves around Pierre’s fascination with the ironically named Ève, a gangster’s teenage trick-turner. Seeing a flashback to what he once was in this doomed junkie, he resolves to rescue her from perdition, kind of like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. On the other hand, maybe Pierre simply wants to grab for what’s underneath this hot chick’s tight pink T-shirts and short shorts. He doesn’t seem to know, but for sure, Pierre goes ga-ga when, …

See the full article from “Northern Stars”

… Too many women die today, killed by men. Too often we donât believe women, we downplay what they are going through, we forgive the men. … As long as these attitudes and prejudices toward sexist violence persist, real equality between men and women is impossible.â – Eve-Marie Lacasse, co-spokesperson for the Fédération des femmes du Québec
âœThis sad anniversary symbolizes violence against women and unfortunately reminds us that this social scourge remains omnipresent. Human dignity, fundamental values and our rights and freedoms are undermined when there is violence. It is by virtue of this dignity that we must continue our individual and collective efforts to eradicate it.â Julie Miville-Dechêne, president of the Conseil du statut de la femme, which is working on two position papers: one on prostitution; the other on honour killings.

See the full article from “Montreal Gazette”

It’s been 22 years since the Montreal massacre. We talk violence against women, and ways to end it, with survival sex work organizer Jennifer Allan, founder of Jen’s Kitchen. She experienced violence in the survival sex industry first-hand, but today, she supports those in the trade and pushes for change.
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Entering the sex industry in 1995, at age 18 – first for two pimps (who she says describes as kind but codependent) in Prince Rupert, B.C., then in a woman-run brothel. Four years later, Allan entered the survival sex industry.
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“A survival sex worker is someone who doesn’t necessarily want to work in prostitution, but they have no other economic alternatives at the time,” Allan said. “They work in the most dangerous working conditions, they get the most bad dates, they get the most criminal charges – and they don’t have the right to say no.

See the full article from “The Vancouver Observer”

Some restaurateurs see it differently. They feel besieged by police. âœThe vice squad deals mostly with shady, criminal elements â drug dealers and prostitutes,â Bondâs Van Cleemput says. âœWhy are restaurants also part of their mandate?â he wonders. âœWeâre being treated as criminals by default, but weâre just hardworking people, trying to please our customers and run a business.â
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âœIt seems like a throwback from the early Jean Drapeau era, when the city was trying to get rid of prostitution and speakeasies and generally preoccupied with slum clearance,â he says. âœI donât see how weâre able to control for nuisances and criminal behaviours associated with drinking by applying (the meal requirement),â he says. âœHere we have a law that may have once have made sense, but now just imposes unnecessary hardship on legitimate businesses. It may be thwarting the development of the restaurant industry in Montreal.â

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During sentencing arguments at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday, prosecutor Gianni Cuffaro asked Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Boyer to consider that the drug Roy (Capone) Haynes Jr. was dealing “is highly addictive and contributes to problems like violence and prostitution.”
Cuffaro asked that Haynes be sentenced to a 10-year prison term, while defence lawyer Claude Olivier requested a suspended sentence or one that could be served in the community.
Boyer said he will render his decision on Feb. 16.
Haynes, 35, was arrested along with 51 others in 2008 in a Montreal police investigation dubbed Project Satellite targeting the Outlaws, a gang run by Haynes that operated in western Montreal.
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Haynes’s right-hand man in the Outlaws, Ishi Milton (Ice) Samuels, 33, received a 78-month prison term in January 2010 after he pleaded guilty to participating in a criminal organization, drug trafficking, conspiracy to traffic and living off the avails of prostitution.

See the full article from “Montreal Gazette”